The GHL seminar series will begin in 2026 with a seminar on “Provenance and Personhood: Unfolding the Story of the Kandy Ring“. In this session, we are pleased to welcome Ganga Rajinee Dissanayaka, who will examine the Kandy Ring through provenance, craftsmanship, personal memory, and its ecological and material sustainability dimensions. Tracing the gold ring’s journey from traditional Sri Lankan techniques to colonial collections, reveals layered histories, human-environment interactions, and evolving heritage values.

As a space for experimentation and dialogue, the series seeks to critically explore multiple pasts and presents to envision alternative futures. It aims to bring scholars and practitioners from across the globe together to engage, interact and address the current global multi-faceted crisis involving economic, ecological, social and cultural challenges and negotiations of heritage and museums as powerfully charged, conflictual, and creative spaces.

Presenter
Dr Ganga Rajinee Dissanayaka is an ethnographer and art historian specializing in material culture, museum studies, and provenance research. A NIAS–NIOD–KITLV Research Fellow, she studies Sri Lankan art, heritage, and repatriation within global decolonization debates.

Discussant
Dr Rapti Siriwardane-de Zoysa is an anthropologist exploring oceanic cultural ecologies in the Asia-Pacific. Her work focuses on intertidal worlds, epistemic justice, multispecies relations, and speculative infrastructures. She is based at IDOS and BCDSS.

Join us at the Global Heritage Lab at P26 or online